I know the official answer to my question may have been answered in other threads that the board will overclock the unlocked Intel Extreme Edition chips and it will not overclock locked multiplier chips is what I have read. I was wondering if anyone has had much luck with using software such as Clockgen or Systool to increase the bus speeds in order to acheive a faster CPU speed. This thread will share my experience with overclocking my Smithfield D820 Intel on my D955XBK Intel motherboard.

A little info as to where I already have been, I tried an Asus P5N32-Deluxe SLI and returned it because in my oppinion and exprience with the board it was still in the beta stage and shouldn't be on a shelf for people to buy. I picked this Intel board because I wanted stability and that is definatly what this board offers among some nice features like the 8 SATA headers and other things.

What I have read in regards to overclocking this system in reviews all over the web is that this board is only good for overclocking if you buy the $1000 Intel Extreme processors which is not very attractive for the budget minded person, and the enthusiast who wants to see what he can do with what he has. The locked chips such as the Smithfield 2.8ghz chip which I have are not supposed to overclock in this board and what I have read about overclocking the smithfield 2.8 is that I should have gotten an Asus board (hahaha not funny). Well I don't want to get an Asus board because of my recent bad luck that and the fact that I know Asus is quick to come out with a board before everyone and it isn't the type of board I want in my PC. I want to try and make this Intel D955XBK work because I have heard and seen great performance numbers come from this board with the unlocked processors and systems with custom BIOS (that I can't get a hold of).

Lets talk temperature first. Intel says that the D820 is supposed to run between 50c and 80 degrees Celsius. I have found on the web that people who own AMD systems have a hard time understanding that 70 degrees celsius on Dual core intel is within operating limits. However my system when I would run Prime95, on both cores, within minutres the temperature would get over 76 degrees celsius which is crossing the threshold a bit. I clearly had an issue. I read Intel's website and found a diagram showing a basic airflow diagram showing a intake coming from the outside of the side of the case so that air could go straight to the processor fan. I ended up using the end of one of those ZIP tie clear round containers as the vent tube to go from the vent on the side of my case to the CPU. I then installed a Vanctec Tornado TD8038H 80mm 84CFM fan as the CPU fan with a variable controller. Now with this Vantec Tornado installed and the cold air intak (that sounds cool) this fan on a low RPM setting keeps my system running at a cool 66 degrees celsius while under full torture test on both cores in Prime95 which is a major break through for me in keeping this monster cool.

*A side note* the coolermaster hyper48's cpu fan is a major peice of crap, however the copperheatsink/spreader is really nice.

Now that I got the temperature under control it's time to try this software overclocking that I have been researching. This last weekend at a LAN party I decided to give it a try because of the abundance of Guru's who may be able to give me some pointers. My ICS controller is the 954108, both SYSTOOL and Clockgen have an option for 954132 and 954148 which is not my controller. I chose to use Clockgen and didn't try Systool. Now when I tried using the 954132 controller setting with a minimal increase in bus speed, maybe 10 MHZ, my system would crash when I would apply the settings. I then tried the 954148 controller setting and the system appeared to be stable at 2.9ghz. Right away I was excited to have found a setting that seemed to like my mainboard. I went right for the target goal for me which is 3.7Ghz and with no surprise it crashed as soon as the settings were set. I rebooted the machine and kept incrementing the system lower until it stabalized. I got the system to run stable at 3.4GHhz and to run the 3Dmark 2005 test which it was crashing on at faster bus settings. I have also read that one needs to run Prime 95 on their system for minimum of 24 hours to check for errors and with that in mind that is what I will have to do to make sure 3.4ghz is stable for my system.

I am a huge gamer and I do a lot of 3D Animation, this system is primarily for gaming and you can consider me an enthusiast and now this 3Dmark05 score was important for me. I knew I wouldn't see much of an increase but it was a way for me to measure the increase in CPU mixed with what I like to do on my PC.

I read some where that the Smithfield can run stable around 3.7ghz and that was my goal. However I think my memory may be the factor as to why its crashing at the speeds over 3.4ghz. Until I purchase better memory I am hoping that this information is helpful to someone who is looking to overclock their D955XBK Intel board with a locked Intel processor.
I am also hoping that maybe someone can give me a suggestion as to what is the best high performance memory for the price. If you made it this far reading through my crappy writing thanks for checking this out. I look forward to the replies and information. I have had a lot of fun with my new PC. ...and I am spent.